


Another Kind of Bliss

by songofproserpine



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Faith is as clever and calculating as her brothers and I'm here to prove it to you., Family Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Religious Cults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofproserpine/pseuds/songofproserpine
Summary: Faith folded her hands against the belt of her new dress. She felt the flowers pinned to the fabric bruise at her touch, and spared a brief thought to guilt. They were real flowers, living flowers, ready to wilt, die, and then be replaced.Like us, Rachel warned, her words stained with worry.Not anymore, Faith told her, soothed her, shamed her. She inherited the name, not the fate.We won’t let him.---My friend requested a fic where Faith is properly inducted into the Seed family and is thrilled to finally have a place where she can thrive, play her mind games, and be safe.





	Another Kind of Bliss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lutece](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutece/gifts).



Family, like a soul, is something given to you. You have no say in who claims you, no choice, no freedom.

Rachel hated family--hated the word, hated the thought. One day, she vowed with every beat of her heart and drop of blood in her veins to surpass this fear, this pain. She promised to take all the hurt that her family had given her and turn it outward, using it against the world that had let it happen. She promised to take the girl that her family had made and bury her far down, down, where no one could ever reach her again.

Sometimes she worried this promise would fail. She worried it was impossible. She never told anyone about this promise, or her fear. Not even Tracey knew, and they had once shared everything, like sisters.

And then Rachel met the Father, and she knew at last she wouldn’t fail at all. She would never fail again. All it required was a little faith _._

 

Rachel would never forget the look on Tracey’s face when she said goodbye. Faith would never _let_ her forget it. It remained one of her happiest memories.

“What do you mean you’re staying?” Tracey snapped.

Rachel frowned. “You’re the one who brought me here,” she said. “You said I would be happy here, and I am.”

“I know that,” Tracey began, and Rachel loved to see her friend squirm with guilt. “But…”

Rachel waited. “But what?”

“I thought we were friends,” Tracey said, her voice as hard as her expression. “Where you go I go, remember?”

“We are friends, but don’t you see? They can be my _family_.”

“Bullshit,” Tracey spat. “Is that what he told you? Is that what he _promised_?”

Rachel watched as Tracey took in a long, deep breath. She looked so beautiful standing there, full of rage and pain. She was even close to tears; Rachel could sense them, taste them, like a wolf scents blood as it chases its prey.

“And what about our promises, Rache? What about me--about _us_?”

“What about us?” Rachel whispered, as if saying the words softly could lessen their hurt. She took Tracey’s hand, held it tight, and placed it on her face.

“Do you really want me to say it?” she whispered with a brutal simplicity. “I don’t _need_ you anymore.”

It was these words that made Tracey burst into tears, and it was then, and only then, did Rachel smile--cold, bitter, and true.

 

“There has never been another one like you,” the Father whispered days later, in the newly converted convent overlooking the Henbane river.

Faith beamed as he ran his hand over her newly dyed honey-blonde hair.

 _Liar_ , Rachel thought, trying desperately to glare at him. Faith wouldn’t let her. She stared deep into Joseph’s pale, icy eyes, and quietly let Rachel have her moment of bitterness.

Faith knew there were other women, other Faiths; she’d heard the whispers as far back as her first visits to the Project. She’d heard as well the silence that followed these whispers, when those who dared to speak them went missing. Faith did not mind these whispers, nor to have them quickly silenced. She didn’t mind the missing faces at the weekly sermons, the hushed mourners trying not to grieve a traitor. She was relieved to have these bitter, biting words cut off like an offending tongue--but Rachel had other ideas.

Rachel never liked the quiet. Silence, she thought, was always too fragile, like a glass in the shadow of a falling fist. Born to break, made to shatter. Rachel preferred whispers, songs, sighs, screams--she preferred spoken lies to wordless truths.

“There will never be another like you, ever again,” the Father continued. His voice was strong and clear, filling up the empty space in the now abandoned convent.

 _I hope not_ , Rachel whispered in the corridors of their shared heart. She was the ruin of her own heart’s house, a ghost in her own fog.

Faith urged her expression to be a blank, dreamy stare of love and relief. The sunlight shifted into something dark and gray as a cloud hovered over the light, shielding it.

Joseph stepped back and moved towards the warm shadows that hovered around them. Without missing a beat, John stepped forward into Faith’s line of view. She peered at him eagerly, expectant.

John’s expression was difficult to read. Rachel hissed the word “ _suspicion_ ,” but Faith thought he was merely guarded. His bright blue eyes--one of the only shared traits among the brothers--were distant, detached. But then Faith blinked, and in the space between seeing and darkness and seeing once again, his expression changed completely. His smile was now a mirror of her own--kind, eager, loving--as if they were a shared reflection.

“Are you ready?” John asked, and both Rachel and Faith could not help but love him for asking, for waiting. Not even the Father could be so kind.

The cloud faded, and the sun shone bright again. Faith turned her face to the light pouring into the convent from the high arched windows. She nodded. “I’m ready. I was born for this.”

Without another word, John dipped his fingers into the golden urn he held in his left hand. He blotted up the ashes of burned Bliss flowers, and Faith’s heart stirred with every glimpse she caught of the pale white and green powder.

 _My pride, my joy--my life’s greatest work, gifted to the Father._ It had taken her so long to finally make the Bliss, so many sleepless nights and dizzying days; so much tears and blood and fear. She barely remembered most of it. Glimpses of memory came back to her now and then, memories of the Father’s stern warnings and gentle praise, his whispered promises of trust and faith. She remembered the fear most clear of all--fear of letting him down, fear of losing his love. It was fear, in the end, that had helped make the Bliss. Fear sat at its very heart. Faith saw no harm in this. It was natural, sensible. What good was a cure that did not know the pain it was meant to heal?

Faith took more pride in those little brutal flowers than anything else she’d ever done in her whole life. Even Rachel was fond of them, albeit for a different reason. Rachel craved their sweet, devouring oblivion for herself. It was a selfish desire, especially since all Faith wanted to do was _share_ the Bliss, shape it as she wished. Rachel couldn’t wait to take a hit, but Faith? She couldn’t wait to _give_ it, to inflict it. She was so tired of being the vein. How nice it would be to finally be the needle.

“Do you… Faith,” John began, stumbling over her new and true name, as if it were a stone in his path, “promise to take the Word of Joseph into your heart? Do you promise to honor, trust, and obey his love?”

“I promise.” Her voice was clear and hard like a diamond. “I promise.”

Faith saw Joseph’s shoulders rise with the swell of his breath. She hoped he gasped; she hoped he was knocked briefly breathless, and that she was the cause of it. He deserved one little taste of knowing how it felt to have something snatched away.

John pressed his ash-stained fingers against her forehead. “Do you, Faith, promise to honor, trust, and obey your brother, Jacob? Do you trust him to protect you, as you stand with him to guard the gates to our New Eden?”

Faith folded her hands against the belt of her new dress. She felt the flowers pinned to the fabric bruise at her touch, and spared a brief thought to guilt. They were _real_ flowers, living flowers, ready to wilt, die, and then be replaced.

 _Like us,_ Rachel warned, her words stained with worry.

 _Not anymore,_ Faith told her, soothed her, shamed her. She inherited the name, not the fate. _We won’t let him._

“I promise,” she said, her dark eyes shifting off of John’s face, searching for Jacob.

The oldest and tallest Seed brother always fascinated her. It was an interest rooted in sympathy and respect. Jacob’s scars could never be unseen once noticed, yet he carried himself with the honed confidence of a man immune to the weight of old wounds. Rachel envied him. Faith pitied him, even as she admired him.

She looked into the pale blue depths of Jacob’s eyes and knew, without a doubt, that she would never fear him--never, not once. He was not like the other men she’d known: he was honest, not hurtful; he was direct, not demanding. He was not a man quick to any emotion, really--and that suited Faith just fine. If John was a mirror reflecting her own carefully crafted smiles, then Jacob was the still waters upon which she would gaze when she got tired of that mask. Jacob was strong, and she would learn to be just the same.

“I promise,” she said again, louder this time.

Jacob gazed at her in a long, focused stare, as if she were a puzzle he could solve simply by looking. Then, gently, he nodded.

He was so grim, so dire, so serious! Faith stuck out her tongue and laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was a silly thing to do, silly, and childish, playful, innocent--but also _safe_. That’s how she felt, standing there, looking at them all. Like a sister safe in her brothers’ warmth.

She heard Jacob laugh in one low huff. His eyes crinkled briefly, and she caught his smile, just a flash, before he hid it again.

John stifled his own laugh as he traced the Eden’s Gate cross on Faith’s brow, his every movement slow, precise, careful. She shivered under his touch and breathed in deep. Slowly, carefully, she shut her eyes and _felt_ John’s touch sink down to the little thrilling throbs of her heart.

“Do you, Faith,” he said, his voice rising with every word, “promise to trust, honor, and obey your brother, John? Do you promise to let him cleanse your soul of doubt and sin? Do you promise to confess, and to take the hand he offers on your path to Atonement?”

 _Of course he gets the longest speech of them all,_ Rachel huffed.

Faith almost giggled. She opened her eyes. “I promise, John. Of course I promise.”

John grinned. She looked happier than she had ever seen him, and she wondered, with a little stab of fear, if he was just mirroring her look once more.

She hoped he was happy. Really, truly, she did.

John placed his hands on her shoulders. His touch was firm, but fleeting, and he kept his ash-stained fingers raised, not wanting to ruin her dress. “Welcome, Sister Faith,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

She made a face. “Your beard tickles.”

Even Jacob couldn’t hold back his laugh. Joseph, naturally, managed nothing more than a small, sincere smile.

Jacob’s heavy steps echoed as he walked to where Faith stood. His hands were warm and rough as he grasped her shoulders, but his touch was gentle, so gentle. Taking her complaint to heart, Jacob kissed her cheek in a soft, short peck. “Welcome, Sister Faith,” he murmured. He waited for her to smile before he straightened up and moved away.

Faith held her breath as Joseph moved forward to take the place that his brothers had made for him. He held out his arms, his face calm, his gaze loving, and she went to him like a woman in a dream: enthralled, captured, safe and serene.

 _It shouldn’t be this easy,_ Rachel whimpered.

 _But it is, it is. I am_ loved _,_ Faith thought, tears burning in her eyes as she leaned her cheek against Joseph’s chest. She listened to his heart beat out of time with her own. _I am loved, I am worthy. I was_ chosen _._

“Welcome, Sister Faith,” he whispered, his voice like a sigh in her ear. She had never heard a music more sweet than the sound of his voice. “Welcome home.”

 _Home._ Rachel laughed at the word, but Faith-- _this_ Faith, his and theirs, home at last--felt her heart lift.

“I’m home,” she whispered, discovering the truth as she said it.

Gently, so gently, Joseph pushed his hands against Faith’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length. He stared into her eyes with a look so deep and sharp that her skin prickled in the ghost of pain. She wondered if he could see to and _through_ Rachel as well, no matter how low she crouched or hard she tried to hide.

Faith’s throat closed like a fist, taking her breath with it.

“You are loved,” Joseph said, speaking to her pain and stealing its ache. Stealing it, not spreading it. “You are worthy. You were _chosen_.”

Rachel heard his words and felt nothing but doubt. But that was an old habit, hard earned and even harder to give up. Faith knew better than to listen, not when the Father was speaking to her. Not when his voice was the perfect medicine to all her hurts.

Faith heard the Father and felt only love. She was exactly where she wanted to be, exactly where she _belonged_.

Family, like a soul, was something given to you, but this family, _the_ Family, the only one who mattered now, was something Rachel deserved and never had, not really, not truly--not like this. What Rachel had lost, Faith had found. Where Rachel was blind to love and hope and trust, that was all Faith could _see._ She had found her purpose and her place, and no fear could stop her now.


End file.
